Headline News

The headline writers in the British press have had a field day following Chancellor Alistair Darling's pre-budget statement in parliament yesterday. Puns and wordplay abound. The big question is whether the government should spend or save to rescue Britain's failing economy. The Labour government has chosen the first option but the Conservative opposition is, naturally, opposed, calling the plans 'reckless'. Here's a selection of front pages:

 

Commentary: The Daily Telegraph illustrates its headline with a cartoon. Prime Minister Gordon Brown (far left) and Alistair Darling (next to him) are playing a game of Pass the Parcel with middle-class taxpayers - except that the parcel is a time bomb, which will result in an explosion in taxes in the future.

Commentary: The Independent has the headline 'Brown goes for BROKE'. If you go for broke, you take the most extreme or risky course of action in order to try and achieve success. However, if you are broke, it means you've got no money, so there's a play on words.

Commentary: The Times headline 'Into the red' is also a play on words. If you go into the red, it means you get into debt. But red is also the colour of the Socialism (and Communism!). In the cartoon, Gordon Brown is shown waving a red flag with Alistair Darling as the flagpole. The hammer and sickle (an emblem of the Communist movement) has been changed to look like a pound sign. The message is that the Labour government is reverting to left-wing policies to try to revive the economy.

Commentary: The Sun has a typically contrived pun on its front page. Arrears are amounts of money that you owe. But the headline is meant to make you think of the expression "up to your ears (in debt)", which means you owe a lot of money. 

Commentary: Metro's headline changes the words of the well-known song sung by the Seven Dwarves in Disney's Snow White. The original song goes "Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, it's off to work we go" but here it's changed to "I owe, I owe, it's off to work you go". Gordon Brown (I) plans to borrow billions of pounds to fund the recovery but it's the taxpayer (you) who will have to pay it back eventually.